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> I just heard Moira Gunn interviewing Leonard Shlain, author of Art
> and Physics and, most recently, The Alphabet vs the Goddess. A lot
> of it sounded like warmed over Elizabeth Gould Davis, but his main
> thesis is very interesting.
>
> The basic idea is that the introduction of writing about 5000 years
> ago rewired our brains and totally changed society. In this century,
> the introduction of electronically mediated images has rewired us
> again, leading to another massive social change.
I understand this to mean that writing changed the way we learn.
I propose that our intelligence did NOT evolve because writing was introduced,
but that writing was introduced because our brain evolved.
Over the years, the part of our cerebral cortex that commands language
evolved. Likewise, pictures became symbols. Symbols came to represent our
spoken language. I believe this all started with cave paintings of the
earliest Australopithecines.
These early hunter gatherers required language to communicate. "Go over to
that rock. I'll scare the wildebeest in your direction. You ambush the
wildebeest. We'll eat like kings for a week!"
Pictures were probably drawn to teach children and tell stories. TELL STORIES.
In other words, writing. As we evolved over a very long time, and our spoken
language became more complex, so did our written language. So, too, did our
need for language. As technology changed, our needs changed, we evolved, and
the way we communicated changed as well.
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>
> What brought it home to me was his assertion that the books that
> have shaped our society -- works of history, philosophy, literature,
> and science -- are thick tomes, devoid of pictures. I'm not sure how
> Shakespeare fits in, and the works of Euclid and Newton did use
> pictures, but the point is largely true. In fact, even up to 25
> years ago, most technical writing was heavy on prose and light on
> pictures. Technical illustration was a specialty, not something that
> writers tossed in effortlessly as they went along.
Shakespeare did not write technical material, nor did he write children's
books. Shakespeare wrote screenplays and sonnets. Open a script to any play.
See any pictures?
Newton and Euclid were mathematicians. They were not specifically writers. I
believe their works were devoid of art because it didn't fit the medium or the
culture as they envisioned it.
>
> Shlain talks about how images like the mushroom cloud and the view
> of Earth from space have affected people in our time as profoundly
> as any book. Television, the laser printer, the Web -- who knows how
> these things are changing us?
> I've seen a huge increase in the amount and role of visual content
> since I've been reading and writing technical documents. Is this
> just because our tools are better, or is our audience changing as
> well? ...RM
How is a picture of a mushroom cloud different from a picture of an antelope
on a cave wall? They both symbolize a powerful THING to each of us. To a child
in a cave a million years ago, the antelope was probably very important to his
way of life.
Technical writing is a very young idea. I remember my first experience with a
word processor called the "Electric Pencil." Manuals were written by the
software engineers, not professional writers. Until recently, college degrees
in technical writing didn't exist, or were very rare. The World Wide Web is
new too. Maybe not new in this decade, but new in the sense that "personal"
computers have been around less than 20 years. And then only certain people,
who understood the medium, used them. They didn't need, or know they needed,
pictures to "teach."
Now, 5-year-olds are learning from computers. I got on the Internet for the
first time 5 years ago. My first e-mail address... 4 years ago. My 12-year-old
niece knows more about the Internet and computers than my mom. What does all
this mean? Our culture and technology might be changing our needs, but not, I
think, our intelligence.
Why are we turning more to pictures now than before? I don't think we are. We
have always used pictures to convey ideas. We may be becoming more dependent
on visuals because we have realized that visuals facilitate cognition. Our
technology is just bringing visuals to the forefront, and we're noticing it
more. Look at the WWW. But, to say that using pictures is dictating massive
social change is, I think, a fallacy. We've been relying on pictures since our
earliest ancestors told stories around the fire.
